It just got so much worse!
I (and four other passengers) went to the wrong gate - the screen DID say gate 6, at least it did in the Wetherspoons, and the announcer said it too. Apparently it was all the ones who went to the gate early...
Anyway, after an hour of waiting at the gate with lots of people going to Cyprus, someone from the other airline called and discovered we should be at gate 86.
The airport apologised and sent a man in a car and neon jacket to come and drive us to the correct gate. He drove us there, told us to go in. We went in and the gate was closed, plane had gone and all the doors were locked (including the one we came through which locked behind us.)
We tried ringing the Stansted Airport number, which DP found for me after I called him in a panic, but they had no option for 'please press whatever if we randomly locked you at a gate in the middle of the night' - and the recording went on forever.
Finally rescued by a cleaner (we were about to break the alarm) who took us to some airport staff. They took ages to get us out of departures because they didn't know the password for the computer. Finally they just let us out anyway, and told us we needed to speak to Easyjet as we are not their responsibility.
Unsurprisingly there is no one on the Easyjet desk.
I have a blood test in the morning for my lupus, which I will miss, but I also have work (doing overtime as a good colleague is currently really ill) and am damned if I'm going to drop them in it by not showing up.
I'm just really tired and scared of getting ill/missing work.
Also overwhelmed by the surreality of it all, and going to curl up in a corner by the Easyjet desk and try to sleep.
Pinkmanbitch, we should go for coffee one day when/if I even get back to Edinburgh.